


beats for you (listen close)

by ShowMeAHero



Series: the altar is my hips [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Character, Sickfic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22380559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Eddie can barely keep his eyes open, which— He doesn’t reallywantto keep his eyes open. His brain is swelling and his stomach is churning and his skull is being crushed, but he still wants to go out, because he’sinsane.He also has a real thing for Richie, and he doesn’t want Richie to think he’s trying to bail. He’s also pretty positive he can’t even stand up right now. So, in the end, he grabs his phone in his darkened living room and shoots off a text.can’t make it tonight. sorry. migraine,he types, then sends.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: the altar is my hips [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599571
Comments: 67
Kudos: 783





	beats for you (listen close)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carasynthias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carasynthias/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Бьётся для тебя (прислушайся)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25421992) by [Fil_l](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fil_l/pseuds/Fil_l)



> For [_trashmouthed](https://twitter.com/_trashmouthed)!
> 
> Title taken from ["Stereo Hearts"](https://open.spotify.com/track/0qOnSQQF0yzuPWsXrQ9paz?si=XxlF_MAOQhSsf0_sYVG4pQ) by Gym Class Heroes ft. Adam Levine.

Eddie can barely keep his eyes open, which— He doesn’t really _want_ to keep his eyes open. His brain is swelling and his stomach is churning and his skull is being crushed, but he still wants to go out, because he’s _insane._

He also has a real thing for Richie, and he doesn’t want Richie to think he’s trying to bail. He’s also pretty positive he can’t even stand up right now. So, in the end, he grabs his phone in his darkened living room and shoots off a text.

 **can’t make it tonight. sorry. migraine,** he types, then sends. They’ve been seeing each other pretty much every other night, if not every night (for the past week or so), but he still feels like shit for cancelling.

He’s also still fucking miserable from his migraine, but he can’t make himself actually get up to do anything about it. All he manages to do is shove his head under a throw pillow to block out the late afternoon sunlight still trying to stream through the cracks in his curtains.

It’s a fitful sleep, that he falls into, and he comes out of it when he hears a tentative knocking at the door. Eddie frowns slightly, not even lifting his head from where it’s still shoved between the throw pillow and the couch cushions. He hears a soft shuffling, then a muffled curse and the sound of his front door unlocking.

Whoever it is — and Eddie’s praying it’s not a killer, and also half-praying it is, so somebody will put him out of his misery — moves incredibly slowly in an attempt to be quiet, Eddie’s assuming. He feels more than hears them come to his side, and then the pillow is being gently removed from his face.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie murmurs quietly. Eddie doesn’t open his eyes, his face scrunching up as he turns slightly onto his back. A cool weight presses into his cheek, and Eddie sighs, leaning into it; it’s Richie’s hand, he realizes, and he reaches up to take his wrist and push his hand up to his forehead.

“How’d you get in here?” Eddie mumbles.

“I remember you buried the key next to the stairs.” Richie’s long, cold fingers shift, turning so his palm is pressing into Eddie’s forehead instead of the back of it.

“What’re you doing here?” Eddie asks. Richie’s thumb rubs a soothing circle into the bone of his skull at his temple.

“You said you had a migraine,” Richie explains. He’s so carefully keeping his loud voice quiet, and Eddie appreciates it more than he has the words to say, right now. “I get ‘em a lot, so. I figured I’d come help you.”

“Why?” Eddie asks. Richie shrugs, leaning over to kiss Eddie on the cheek before he gets up and goes to a bag he’s left on the floor.

“What else was I doing tonight?” Richie asks in return. “My plans got cancelled.” He looks down into the bag with a slight frown, then looks over at Eddie. “Can you walk? You would probably be more comfortable in your bed.”

“I don’t want to move,” Eddie tells him. After a moment, Richie surveys Eddie, then crouches down next to him to smooth his hair back from his face.

“Is it okay if I carry you?” Richie asks. It’s embarrassing as fuck, how fast Eddie’s face heats up, but he nods slightly once. Richie slips one arm under his back and another under his knees, holding him close in a bridal carry. Eddie just buries his face in Richie’s chest to hide it from the light in the hallway.

Richie goes slowly, and he gingerly sets Eddie down at the foot of the bed so he can turn down the covers before helping him in. He looks Eddie over, then starts stripping off his clothes. Eddie had been kind of optimistic, before the migraine got too bad to leave the house, that their date would still happen, so he’s relieved when Richie pulls his nice clothes off and swaps them out for soft pajamas he finds in Eddie’s dresser.

There are a few times Richie looks like he’s going to start talking, but then he’ll pull whatever it is back in and keep working silently. Part of Eddie wants to prod him to hear it, but most of him wants the silence, so he doesn’t push. Richie seems just fine to take care of him without conversation, so Eddie just shuts his eyes and lets himself be moved.

“Here we go, lay down,” Richie murmurs, once Eddie’s dressed. His hand gently cups the side of Eddie’s head, and he guides him down, his other hand lightly gripping his shoulder to steer him right. He strokes Eddie’s hair again, once he’s laying down.

“Thanks,” Eddie says, soft and scratchy. Richie leans over and kisses him on the cheek again.

“I brought you some food,” Richie tells him, getting up from the side of the bed.

Eddie reaches out for him, but he’s too slow and Richie’s already gone. He withdraws his hand, frowning, but then he feels Richie’s fingers touch the back of his wrist before tangling up with his own fingers. Eddie squints up at him just as Richie kisses his knuckles.

“I gotcha, Eds,” Richie says. “I won’t be gone for even a minute. Just gotta go grab my bag, alright?”

“Okay,” Eddie murmurs. Richie kisses the back of his hand, then gently places it back down on the mattress and creeps out of the room. He’s gone barely ten seconds, even, before he’s sneaking back in. He closes the door so softly behind himself that Eddie almost misses it.

“Here we go,” Richie says, so quiet it’s hard to hear him. When Eddie squints one eye open again, the other side of his face still smushed into his pillow, the room is completely dark. It’s so dark, in fact, that he doesn’t know where Richie is until he’s right next to him. “I brought you snacks and dinner— I usually go for salty and greasy stuff, so I—”

“Perfect,” Eddie tells him. Richie unpacks a burger and fries for him and sets them on the nightstand, then digs a bag of chips out of his bag and carefully tears them open. He snaps open a can of Coke and leaves it on the nightstand, too, before he pulls a bottle of ibuprofen out of his bag.

“I know you have, like, every medicine known to man, and I _think_ that includes early cocaine medicines, _but_ I noticed you were out of ibuprofen a little bit ago so I figured I’d bring more,” Richie says, setting the bottle aside on the nightstand before helping Eddie sit up. Eddie’s so grateful and miserable simultaneously that he wants to cry. Instead, though, he just lets Richie climb into bed beside him and slips into the circle of his arms, pressing his cheek into Richie’s shoulder again.

It takes some coaxing on Richie’s part, but Eddie eventually gathers himself and manages to eat most of what Richie brought him, and he’s rewarded with a few tablets of ibuprofen and a kiss on the cheek.

“Stay here,” Richie says, as Eddie swallows his medicine. He kisses his cheek once more, then twice, before leaving the room again. Eddie looks over at Richie’s bag again, then slides down and closes his eyes, keeping his face buried in his pillow.

Richie comes back with a cold compress and the gel eye mask from Eddie’s freezer. He kneels beside him on the bed, smoothing Eddie’s hair back for a moment or so before he’s pulling the band around Eddie’s head and securing the mask over his eyes. Eddie sighs, all the air slipping out of his lungs when he feels the relief of the biting cold.

“There you go,” Richie says. He strokes Eddie’s cheek, then helps him turn onto his back so he can settle the cold compress over his forehead, pressing it into place. Eddie wants to fucking cry, it feels so good. Instead, he just settles for reaching out blindly for Richie’s hand. “Do you want silence or do you want me to put something on?”

“Can you put the TV on?” Eddie asks. Richie kisses his chin, where there’s no compress or gel or ice blocking his way.

“Whatever you want,” Richie replies. He settles back into the pillows again, stretching across Eddie for a moment to lift Eddie’s remote control up off his nightstand. Eddie listens to him mute the television and flip through streaming services before he settles on something. The volume goes back up to a soft, manageable hum.

“What is it?” Eddie asks. Richie cards his hand through Eddie’s hair gently, pulling him into his side.

 _“13 Going on 30,”_ Richie tells him. “Easy viewing for an easy guy.”

“I’m not easy,” Eddie grumbles into his pillow. Richie leans over and kisses his nose, then pulls away. It takes a minute, because Eddie’s head is still being squeezed until his brain comes out his ears and his eyeballs feel like they’re getting stabbed, but he realizes he feels a little bit better when Richie’s touching him. He doesn’t even care if it's a placebo effect; if he feels better _at all,_ he’ll take it.

Eddie, with monumental effort, shifts slightly onto his side and rests his head on Richie’s chest, his temple underneath Richie’s collarbone. Richie’s hand comes up, adjusts the eye mask and then the cold compress for him, and then strokes through Eddie’s hair. With a sigh, Eddie shifts entirely, tangling one leg with Richie’s and fisting his hand in Richie’s shirt, pressing his face hard into his chest.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Richie says. Eddie exhales slowly. “I got you, Eds. You’re okay. Get some sleep, okay? I’ll be here when you get up, I promise.”

Eddie can’t fall asleep right away, even though he wants to and even though he believes Richie when he says he’ll stay. His head still hurts too much to do anything at all, so he just keeps his face hidden in Richie’s shirt, lets the cold numb his face and his head, and drifts in and out of awareness.

Richie, now and then, will laugh at something in the movie, stifling the sound so he doesn’t wake Eddie up. The sound rumbles in his chest, instead, and Eddie loves it every time it happens. He keeps his hand in Eddie’s hair, too, as they watch the movie, slowly thread his fingers through it over and over. He’ll stop, now and then, to tenderly massage into his scalp and his skull, and Eddie will sigh, and Richie’s fingers will stall for a moment before he starts up again.

Eventually, Eddie actually _does_ drift off, and he slides in and out of consciousness all through his favorite romantic comedy and then through whatever Richie puts on next. He can hear the soft, language-less murmuring sound of the voices. Richie never stops stroking and massaging his head, and that’s how Eddie passes the night.

Periodically, Eddie will wake up, and Richie will lift his head, blearily, to give Eddie medicine and water and stroke his hair and kiss his cheek until he goes back to sleep. When Eddie wakes up at dawn, though, and he pulls the lukewarm eye mask off with a grimace, he finds his migraine has mostly gone, leaving a dull headache and a lack of desire to get out of bed.

Richie, for whatever godforsaken reason, is still in Eddie’s bed, sprawled out asleep. Eddie had been pretty sure he’d wake up to find Richie on the couch or, more likely, nowhere at all, having gone back to his place once he made sure Eddie was all set. Instead, he’s apparently spent the night. He’s still in the t-shirt and jeans he’d been wearing when he got there the night before, and Eddie feels uncomfortable just looking at him.

He sits up, unfastening Richie’s jeans and starting to tug them off — just a little bit at a time, in an attempt to make sure Richie stays asleep. It doesn’t work, because the jeans are tight and they briefly stick around his ass, making Richie yawn and furrow his brow, one eye opening slightly before he groans and closes it again.

“Not while you’re sick,” Richie mumbles, almost nonsense with how slurred with sleep the words are. Eddie would roll his eyes if he didn’t think it might make them fall out of his head with the lingering ache. He tugs at Richie’s jeans again, and Richie weakly kicks at him.

“Let me get them off,” Eddie mutters at him. Richie lifts his head again, but he stops fighting, and Eddie manages to get his jeans and socks off before he settles back in, putting his head back on Richie’s chest, over the soft, warm material of Richie’s t-shirt.

“How’re you feeling?” Richie asks, sounding marginally more awake.

“Better,” Eddie says. His face heats up, he can _feel_ his cheeks going red, but he doesn’t hide his face. Instead, he just lightly runs his hand over Richie’s belly, over his chest, and lets his palm settle flat on his other shoulder. “I’m sorry I ruined our night.”

“You did not ruin our night, Spaghetti Man, don’t be such a drama queen,” Richie tells him. Eddie sighs, but Richie kisses the top of his head anyways.

“I just mean you shouldn’t’ve needed to do that,” Eddie says. “I don’t want you to feel— I don’t know, obligated or whatever.”

Richie’s quiet for a second, then a minute. It goes long enough that Eddie tips his head back so he can look up into Richie’s surprisingly contemplative face. _Surprisingly_ given that he really hasn’t been awake all that long.

“I do feel obligated,” Richie starts, slowly, but then he adds, “but I’m— I like it. I like being obligated to you.”

“What,” Eddie says flatly, more statement than question. “Richie, you’re not—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Richie says. Eddie rests his chin on Richie’s chest, watching his face as he considers whatever he wants to say before he says it. After a beat, Richie continues, “I’m— I don’t know. I’m kind of alone a lot, and everyone I know has someone else they’ll call before they’ll call me, I guess. I don’t know, I’m just— I’m not used to feeling so useful, and I like you so much that, that being able to help you was— I _wanted_ to do that.”

Eddie cups Richie’s face in his hand, then sits up slightly so he can kiss him, a soft press with a lot of heat and emotion behind it, bubbling up Eddie’s throat and filling his head and his chest. He realizes, with all the subtlety of a brick to the face, that he’s falling in love with Richie, and the stupid thought makes him smile like a dumbass.

“What’re you thinking about?” Richie asks.

“Just— You,” Eddie answers. “I’m sorry, I just felt embarrassed. I didn’t want you to see that.”

“I want to help,” Richie says. “I can help if you let me. I _want_ to, I really do.”

“I know you do,” Eddie tells him, because Richie’s being so painfully honest that he can’t _not_ know. “I— I had a hard time when I was younger, with my mom, whenever I was sick or— or even if I wasn’t, really, she babied me and took control over my life and now I don’t really— I don’t, I don’t really know what to do, when I’m sick, so I just do it by myself. I don’t want anyone else to have that control over me.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Richie says, “Eddie, if I overstepped, I am _so—”_

“No,” Eddie hurries to interrupt him. “I— Okay, I’m going to say something, but you can’t make fun of this later. Because I’m sick, and that would be cruel. Got it?”

“You have my word, Eds,” Richie says.

“Having you here made me realize I don’t have to be afraid of giving up that control,” Eddie admits. Richie cups his cheek in his hand again. “I don’t have to be the one in control of myself all the time and I don’t have to— to cling to being alone, I— I guess, and to doing things on my own, because if it was— I mean, if it was _you,_ I’d want to help. So, I want _you_ to help.” He pauses, then says, “I’m sorry, this is a long way of saying I really like you and I’m— I’m really glad you stayed, Richie. Thank you.”

Richie’s eyes are suspiciously glassy when he twists to kiss Eddie properly before settling back against the pillows again, but Eddie doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he rests his head back down, ear over Richie’s heart, and listens to it thumping away in his chest, pounding hard and fast to shoot blood through his veins as he processes what Eddie’s said to him.

“I really like you, too,” Richie eventually says. “I’d stay no matter what, Eds. You mean a lot to me. I mean that.”

Eddie’s _own_ eyes feel suspiciously glassy, but he just nods and buries his face in Richie’s chest again before he says, “Don’t go.”

“What?” Richie asks. Eddie lifts his head and kisses him again, soft and slow again, but long enough that Richie forgets his question, then forgets he wanted to ask anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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